Why Would Somebody Pay Two Hundred Dollars for One Record?

Our Complete Guide to Record Collecting for Audiophiles

Our good customers, Ryan, wrote to tell us just how much he liked the Hot Stamper pressing we sent him of Paul Simon’s The Rhythm of the Saints.

I responded with a few points about the service we provide to the well-healed audiophile. We do this by way of offering the best sounding pressings of your favorite albums, assuming that your favorite albums are the ones we offer on our site. (Many of them are favorites of mine.)

Most of the time our customers agree about the superior sound of our records, especially the customers (like Ryan) who do their own shootouts.)

Based on what I am reading, the pressing we sent Ryan is so good it’s practically priceless. But somebody had to put a price on it, and the price we landed on was two hundred bucks.

To some people this is an outrageous amount of money for one record. But not to someone who loves the album and will play it for the rest of his life. Once a month for 40 years comes to $4 a spin. With apologies to Pete Townshend, I call that a bargain.

If The Rhythm of the Saints is a favorite record of yours, you can now enjoy it for the rest of your life, secure in the knowledge that you have a killer copy in your collection waiting to be played whenever you damn well feel like it (assuming the kids and the wife are out of the house).

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Couperin / Mozart / Corelli / Britten – Music For Strings / Janigro

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings in Living Stereo

  • You’ll find KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) Living Stereo sound or close to it throughout this vintage Shaded Dog pressing of these superb classical compositions
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • This copy was simply bigger, more transparent, less distorted, more three-dimensional and more REAL than practically all of what we played
  • The rich, textured sheen of the strings that Living Stereo made possible in the 50s and early 60s is clearly evident throughout these pieces, something that the Heavy Vinyl crowd will never experience, because that sound simply does not exist on modern records

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Neil Young – Comes A Time

More of the Music of Neil Young

  • With solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on both sides, this wonderful early pressing of Neil’s brilliant folky album from 1978 will be very hard to beat – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • The better copies of Comes A Time are the sonic equal of the best recordings in Neil’s catalog – and that’s saying a lot
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Comes a Time finally was the Neil Young album for the millions of fans who had loved Harvest, an acoustic-based record with country overtones and romantic, autobiographical lyrics, and many of those fans returned to the fold, enough to make Comes a Time Young’s first Top Ten album since Harvest.”

Here’s a copy of Comes A Time that actually delivers the kind of Tubey Analog Magic you get from the good pressings of his earlier albums.

This superb Demo Disc has been overlooked by the audiophile press for forty years. The best-sounding Neil Young records — just look in our Hot Stamper listings to find them — have Demo Disc sound to beat the band. I defy anyone to play me a better-sounding record than Zuma or Gold Rush. Analog doesn’t get any more magical.

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Joni Mitchell – For The Roses

More of the Music of Joni Mitchell

  • With stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades on both sides, this early White Label Asylum pressing is practically as good a copy as we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • The sound is rich, warm and natural, with wonderful immediacy to Joni’s vocals and Tubey Magic for days – this is the amazing sound of Asylum in the Seventies, a subject nobody seems to talk about but us
  • One of the best sounding Joni records, on a par with Court and Spark and Blue – fine company indeed
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The lyrics here are among Mitchell’s best, continuing in the vein of gripping honesty and heartfelt depth exhibited on Blue…. More than a bridge between great albums, this excellent disc is a top-notch listen in its own right.”

This copy has real energy and dynamics that just could not be heard on most of the pressings we played. With dynamics and the warmth and richness found here, this copy will be hard to beat.

Listen to how huge the piano is. No two copies will show you the same piano, which makes it a great test for sound. Both sides have clear, present, breathy vocals, about as good as Joni can sound on vinyl, which is saying a lot.

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Jimmy Page’s Houses of the Holy Needed Tubes and Didn’t Get Them

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Led Zeppelin Available Now

We did not care for the newly remastered version of Houses of the Holy. It badly lacks the kind of mastering that Robert Ludwig brought to the sound, and by that we mean lots of lovely tubes in the mastering chain.

What tube equipment he used and how he used it is something we have been researching for years now, but rather than go down that rabbit hole for the moment, let’s just say the Tubey Magic that is all over the original cuttings of the album is hard to find on the new one, and that means it’s missing a quality that makes Houses of the Holy one of the most luscious audiophile listening experiences one can have, even for those of us who long ago gave up on tube equipment.

The notes for side one, track one (The Song Remains the Same) and track three (Over the Hills and Far Away), read:

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Miles Davis – Miles In The Sky

More of the Music of Miles Davis

  • Boasting a STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one, this original Stereo 360 pressing is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Miles In The Sky you’ve heard
  • Incredible sound courtesy of Arthur Kendy’s and Frank Laico’s engineering at the famed Columbia Studio B in NYC
  • Miles here is backed by his classic 60s All Star crew – Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter & Tony Williams
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • “…Miles Davis explicitly pushed his second great quintet away from conventional jazz, pushing them toward the jazz-rock hybrid that would later become known as fusion… intriguing music…”

Both sides have excellent bass, correct sounding brass, wonderful transparency and loads of Tubey Magic.

Many copies didn’t have the kind of transparency or openness that we heard here, which made it harder to appreciate the contributions of the different players. This one puts plenty of separation between the various instruments, so you can make sense of what each of these heavy-hitters adds to the mix. You will have a very hard time finding a copy out in the bins that sounds as good as this one!

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Traffic – The Best of Traffic

More Music on Island Records

For those who wish to find their own Hot Stamper pressings of the album, we say more power to you. Our helpful advice can be found at the bottom of the listing,

  • This original Pink Label Island pressing was doing practically everything right, with both sides earning killer Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades, just shy of our Shootout Winner – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Here are the full-bodied mids, punchy lows and clear, open, extended highs that let this 1969 release come alive
  • This amazing compilation boasts superb sound, often dramatically better than the very same tracks on many of the original British releases
  • Top 100 and 4 stars: “The entire second side of the LP, comprising ‘Medicated Goo,’ ‘Forty Thousand Headmen,’ ‘Feelin’ Alright,’ ‘Shanghai Noodle Factory,’ and ‘Dear Mr. Fantasy,’ was the kind of progressive rock that would define Traffic and give it its place in the rock pantheon.”
  • For our current take on the sound of the various labels and stampers for Mr. Fantasy and The Best of Traffic, please click here.

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David Bowie – Lodger

More of the Music of David Bowie

  • With INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from top to bottom, this vintage UK pressing is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Lodger you’ve heard
  • We shot out a number of other imports and the midrange presence, bass, and dynamics on this outstanding copy placed it head and shoulders above most other pressings we played
  • The sound is big and rich, yet still wonderfully clean, clear and open with fantastic energy – you will not believe all the space and ambience on these sides
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Lodger has an edgier, more minimalistic bent than its two predecessors, which makes it more accessible for rock fans, as well as giving it a more immediate, emotional impact.”
  • If you have Low (1977) and Heroes (1978), this is the album that completes Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy, made possible by the team of Brian Eno and Tony Visconti

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Hot Stampers May Not Cause Cognitive Dissonance

Acquiring Better Sounding Records – Hot Stampers Versus Collectible Vinyl

Hot Stampers don’t always cause cognitive dissonance because some people never developed much in the way of critical listening skills. There are also other reasons, some of which we discuss below.

Without knowing what to listen for on a record, what are you left with? What aural information can you rely on?  None it seems.

If that is the case, all you can really go by are what your heroes — the mastering engineers who make audiophile recors — tell you. And these days you have so many great ones to choose from!

In the letter below I discuss with my good customer Aaron how to help his friend Jack come to a better understanding of the differences between various pressings of records, vintage LPs like the ones we sell, and the ones that have been remastered on Heavy Vinyl, like the one he already owns.

Head to head comparisons are the best way — practically the only way — to determine what a particular LP sounds like relative to another pressing. Basically, we want to know what the various strengths and weaknesses are for each of the pressings we are playing against each other.

Not what they tell you in promotional literature, or what some reviewer says, or whatever you can find on the web.

No, none of that will do. What you actually hear when playing the records for yourself.

As is the case with many of the shootouts that Aaron has run, once again Rumours is the record he chose for testing.

Dear Tom,

Last night I dropped by my friend Jack’s house for some camaraderie and some listening. Jack’s utterly devoted to Steve Hoffman. Thinks he’s a genius. Also buys a lot of Chad’s UHQR pressings, and seems to think Bernie’s still got the magic touch.

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Chet Atkins – Caribbean Guitar

More of the Music of Chet Atkins

  • You’ll find stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades on both sides of this famous TAS Super Disc RCA Living Stereo LP – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Plays fairly quiet too – about as quiet as these RCA pressings from the early 60s ever will (noted condition issues below notwithstanding)
  • If you have ever heard one of our luscious Living Stereo Chet Atkins records, you know what to expect – off the charts Tubey Magic unlike anything made in the last fifty years, or more!
  • Engineer Bill Porter just doesn’t know how not to make an amazing sounding Living Stereo recording – everything the guy touches is gold
  • If you’re a fan of the smooth guitar stylings of Mr. Atkins, this is a classic from 1962 that belongs in your collection.

This is one of Chet Atkins’ best albums. Sonically, it’s right up there with The Other Chet Atkins and the Hollywood album. It seems like Bill Porter just doesn’t know how not to make an amazing sounding Living Stereo recording. He knocked this out of the park.

I suppose we owe a debt of gratitude to Harry Pearson for pointing out to us with his TAS List what a great record this is, although I’m pretty sure anybody playing this album can tell after a minute or two that it’s in that very special class of great recordings.

This album is a little more lively than some of his other recordings, which can be criticized for being a little too laid back. For example, try side 2, cut 2 where Chet actually jams.

The last track on side 2 where Chet is joined by a trumpet player is my favorite on the album. That guitar-trumpet combination is pretty magical on that song. And you’ve got to love the kind of sound Bill Porter get from a trumpet. That’s the kind of sound we audiophiles drool over. I do anyway.

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